Victrix augebat Cynthia regnum:
On Seneca’s Astronomical Dating at Apocolocyntosis 2.1

Simon P. Burris (Baylor University)

At Apocolocyntosis 2.1, Seneca provides a verse periphrasis for the date of Claudius’ death, followed by a prose “translation”, obviously meant to highlight the humor of the passage: iam Phoebus breviore via contraxerat ortumlucis et obscuri crescebat tempora Somni,iamque suum victrix augebat Cynthia regnumet deformis Hiemps gratos carpebat honoresdivitis Autumni iussoque senescere Bacchocarpebat raras serus Vindemitor uvas.puto magis intellegi, si dixero: mensis erat October, dies III idus Octobris. Critics have long taken the third line of the passage (“and now victorious Cynthia [the moon] was increasing her rule”) to repeat the sense of the previous two lines, i.e. to refer to the longer nights following the autumnal equinox, and therefore indirectly to the autumn season (Ball 1902, 160; Buecheler 1915, 449; Weinreich 1923, 30; Russo 1965, ad loc.; Coffey 1976, 172; Eden 1984, 68; Lund 1994, 65).  By contrast, I will argue that the phrase augebat...regnum refers to a specific time of the month, and that this particular use of lunar dating is well in line with established Greek and Roman poetic tradition.  Furthermore, victrix is here a reference to the contemporary theory of celestial spheres, and this reference helps us to place Seneca in the larger context of ancient astronomical poetry. Elsewhere in Greek and Roman poetry, the full moon is the moon par excellence, as is first seen in Iliad 18. 483f.  When the moon is described as increasing its power, this is done in terms of its waxing, as at Seneca, Oedipus 505 Lunaque dimissos dum plena recolligit ignes.  As one would expect, the moon measures time in months, not seasons: Ovid Fasti 3.883f., Luna regit mensis; Catullus 34.17f., tu cursu, dea, menstruo metiens iter annuum.  Moon imagery is explicitly used to date events in several places in Greek and Latin poetry: Aen. 3.645f.; Ovid, Fasti 2.175, 2.447; Lucan 1.217-9; Pindar, O. 3.19-22.  Seneca’s periphrasis at Apocolocyntosis 2.1. follows established poetic tradition by placing Claudius’ death at a specific time within the month. Besides victrix at Apocolocyntosis 2.1, Seneca also speaks of the moon as “victorious” over the sun at Thyestes 840-2: vincetque sui fratris habenas, curvo brevius limite currens.  In both cases the reference is to the relative size of the celestial spheres (familiar to us from Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis) on which the sun and moon are situated as they traverse the heavens.  This kind of imagery is avoided by most astronomical poets, who follow Aratus in his explicit rejection of the theme of planetary motion at Phaenomena 454-461.  Seneca’s treatment of this theme in his poetry is unique, and is best explained by the interest in celestial spheres expressed in his prose philosophical writings, e.g. De beneficiis 4.23.

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